Backstory: When I was pregnant with DS, I was on Medicaid, so I had what I assume was industry-standard prenatal care with my OB, including a glucose test (I have an excellent diet... This seemed really unnecessary to me, not to mention absolutely disgusting) and a barrage of tests for STDs and things like Down syndrome and other abnormalities - that the OB said he "had" to perform because of my insurance. I refused to see the results, but didn't agree with doing the tests to begin with. (NC does require certain STD tests for pregnant women on Medicaid, which is fine - I was more upset about the testing of DS).

This time around, we are no longer on Medicaid - we now have a HDHP through Aetna Feds. So, in addition to the fact that there are some aspects of "standard" care that I don't agree with, we have to pay for EVERYTHING until we reach our deductible (several thousand dollars). Then, of course, Aetna covers everything 90/10, but it's still a substantial bill that we're going to sustain.

SO, what I want to know is - what is absolutely unnecessary as far as my prenatal care goes? We do want an ultrasound at/around 20 weeks so we know the baby's gender, but outside of that... What do they really NEED to do? I had labs drawn last week and I was a little uncomfortable - like, do they really have to do that? BUT I don't have enough medical knowledge to be comfortably assertive and say NO to something. I do know that I want to skip the glucose test, and any tests on the baby since that wouldn't change anything anyway, but outside of that, I don't know what I can "safely" refuse.

I'm not a high risk pregnancy at all - DS and I were both totally normal. Well, aside from the fact that I gained 41 pounds, yuck (my goal this time is 25-30 max). I delivered vaginally after 18 hours of labor, induced by breaking my waters. I had an epidural for the last 4-6 hours of labor and one dose of pitocin sometime after my epi was administered. Don't know if any of that's relevant... But anyway. I've done research online and the line between necessary and unnecessary seems VERY blurry, especially depending on the "crunchiness" (if you will) of whoever's opinion it happens to be. What do YOU think?